On 2 Jan., 13:04, Lüko Willms wrote:
Am 01.01.2012 23:27, schrieb Neil Williams:

If it's owned by the Government it's nationalised, whatever means that
ownership may take, IMO.

* *you have a strange concept of "nationalization"

It's the one that agrees with my dictionary (and wikipedia).

* *Do you really believe that the composition of the shareholders makes
a qualitative difference for the commercial activity of a company?

Absolutely it does. There are reams and reams of laws governing the
relationships between parent companies and subsidiaries, and the stake
one company can hold in another before it is deemed to be a subsidiary
(so that its financial performance must be incorporated into the
figures of the parent company), and the size of holding one company
can have in another before the parent must make an offer to buy out
the subsidiary. It is well understood that if one single organisation
holds a controlling interest (50% +1 shares) in another, the remaining
shareholders effectively have no control over what that company does.

* *At which percentage of ownership by a state entity does a company
stop being "really a commercial operator"?

50% +1 share. At that point the government shareholding is a
controlling interest, and the private shareholders combined can not
vote down any measure imposed by the controlling shareholder.

* *Do you really believe this idiotic nonsense?

The courts and parliament do.

* *What about the Rothaus brewery, just to cite one little example?

Definitely.

Commerzbank?

Northern Rock? RBS? Yes to all of them.

Robin